That faint "yes" didn't bring the expected chance to breathe.
The back of Lynus's hand, pressed against his face, abruptly shifted from pressure to a sharp withdrawal before clenching into a fist and smashing down!
Thud!
The first blow landed near his cheekbone. The impact resonated dully within his skull, bringing instant ringing in his ears and a burst of stars across his vision. A searing, stinging pain exploded from the spot, swiftly spreading across half his face.
It was as if this was a signal.
Then came the second, the third… Fists fell like hailstones, no longer limited to his face, striking with haphazard yet brutal force against Erika's shoulder, chest, even his side. Each impact was accompanied by the dull sound of flesh and bone absorbing the shock and Lynus's own choked, excited grunts from deep in his throat.
"Unh! Hhk…!"
Erika struggled with everything he had. His bound body twisted and arched violently within its limited space, trying to dodge or deflect the blows. But the restraint garment and Lynus's weight were like iron bands, pinning him firmly to the cold floor. Each desperate writhe only served to expose other areas more fully to the falling fists.
Burning pain erupted at each point of impact, rapidly spreading into a suffocating sea of scorching agony. The bones beneath his flesh groaned and vibrated under the strain. His insides felt hammered by a sledge, churning violently. His ears filled with the sickening thuds of fists meeting flesh, mixed with his own uncontrollable, broken cries and whimpers, forced from deep in his throat. His vision blurred and swam from the pain and concussive force, the ceiling's cold light fracturing into a wavering halo.
Under this relentless barrage of violence, his consciousness flickered like a guttering candle in the wind, its light growing fainter, about to be completely swallowed by an abyss of boundless darkness and agony…
Just as the last shred of his awareness was about to be consumed—
His left arm!
A surge of raw, alien, ferocious power erupted without warning from the very depths of his left arm, like subterranean magma! It was so overwhelming that it instantly drowned out the muscle ache and nerve numbness—it even shattered the limits of the tough straps confining his left arm within the restraint garment!
Rrrip—!
The sickening sound of fabric being violently torn!
Erika's left arm, to his own disbelieving shock, tore free of its restraints! The arm moved with blinding speed, purely on instinct, locking itself in place to guard his face, already battered and burning with pain.
Thump! Fist met forearm with a solid sound. Erika felt his arm go numb from the impact, but it held firm!
Not just that.
The surging heat instantly flooded his entire body. His previously weak, powerless torso and legs felt inundated with savage strength. A strange sensation—a swelling pressure from the power and an undeniable violent impulse—poured through every vein and nerve.
The change was too fast. Too abrupt.
Lynus's next descending fist froze mid-air, mere inches from Erika's raised, guarding left arm. The manic violence on his face stopped dead.
"Sela!"
Lynus's voice rang out—unnaturally steady and clear, stripped of all the madness from moments before.
In the next instant, the weight pressing down on Erika vanished. Lynus stood up swiftly and cleanly, brushing nonexistent dust from the hem of his blue robe as if he hadn't just been kneeling on someone, beating them senseless.
Erika lay on his back, his left arm still locked in its defensive posture, his entire body flooded with that sudden, roaring, unfamiliar power. His nearly extinguished consciousness was violently dragged back, plunging him into an unprecedented state of chaos and agitation. His heart thundered. Blood roared in his ears. Every cell screamed—partly from lingering pain, but mostly from this uncontrollable, searing power that felt ready to burst from his skin. He wanted to roar, to tear everything before him apart, to unleash it—
"Including the time of your departure, Lord Lyn—"Sela's voice came from the doorway, calm, as if delivering a routine report.
"Can't blame me…" Lynus cut her off. He lay back down beside Erika on the floor, resuming their earlier side-by-side position, even shifting to make himself comfortable. He turned his head toward Erika, still caught in that surging, disoriented state, and smiled.
"Can't blame me."
He repeated it, then added softly, as if sharing a secret:
"You'll get used to it."
A short, strange burst of laughter followed."Hahahahaha!"It stopped as abruptly as it began.
And with it, the full, intoxicating sense of power inside Erika receded like a tide—rapidly, irreversibly—draining away as cleanly as it had come.
In its wake, the pain surged back with a vengeance—the agony from the beating, the dull ache from the fall, the pounding headache from oxygen deprivation, and a deeper hollowness and cold where the strength had been ripped away.
"Hhh… hhh… hhh…"
If he could have, Erika would have screamed—ripped loose all his rage, terror, confusion, and resentment.
But the lack of oxygen left his lungs like shredded bellows, capable only of ragged, broken gasps, each breath tearing at his aching chest.
He lay on the cold floor. Beside him lay Lynus, who had just beaten him savagely and now reclined as if nothing had happened.
What kind of a joke is this…
A single cold, despairing thought pierced through the pain:
What in all the hells did I ever do… to make you hate me so much… that you'd… again and again… use every possible method… to torment me like this?
There was no answer.
Only the cold floor beneath him—and the faint, steady breathing of the blue-robed figure beside him.
All his emotions—fear, rage, humiliation, the violent exhilaration of that brief power, and the deeper despair as it was torn away—collided and detonated within the cramped confines of his skull. A buzzing filled his ears. His vision held only Lynus's hatefully smiling face and the ceiling's harsh white light. He was drowning in a self-destructive vortex of feeling.
Until—
Warmth.
A solid, steady warmth—not his own—enveloped him.
Sela had moved to the overturned wheelchair. She righted it efficiently, then knelt without hesitation on the cold floor beside Erika. Her arms wrapped around his restraint-bound, violently trembling body in a close, sheltering embrace. One hand began patting his back in a slow, steady rhythm—pat… pat… pat… The motion carried a calming vibration even through the thick fabric.
This sudden, unannounced warmth was like ice dropped into boiling oil.
"Uh… wuh…" A sob caught in Erika's throat.
All the violent, colliding emotions seemed to be instantly absorbed, softened, diluted by the embrace. The grievance, fear, and post-traumatic fragility he had been forcing down burst through like a shattered dam.
Tears—hot, uncontrollable—poured from his reddened eyes, soaking into the fabric of Sela's habit at her shoulder. Unable to wipe them away, he buried his face deeper into that warmth, which smelled faintly of clean soap. His body shook with violent, helpless sobs, like a leaf in a storm that had finally found shelter.
Sela didn't speak.
She simply held him and continued the gentle patting, as if wordlessly telling him: You can cry. You can be afraid. You can fall apart. I am here.
This silent acceptance carried more power than any words, shielding him—if only briefly—from the floor's cold, the pain's burn, and Lynus's chilling presence.
After some unknown stretch of time—perhaps only a few breaths—Sela's soft voice sounded near Erika's ear, pitched to carry clearly to the other person in the room:
"That's enough for today, Lord Lynus."
Her tone was calm, yet carried an unmistakable finality.
"Nooo, come on~" Lynus immediately protested from the floor beside them, adopting an exaggerated, childish, wheedling tone utterly unlike his earlier selves. "I want a hug too…"
"Lord Lynus."Sela spoke again—still gentle, but now layered with a faint, firm restraint. She said nothing else. She simply repeated the address.
A brief silence.
"…Fine." Lynus's voice shifted back to its lazy calm, as if the petulance had never existed. He sat up slowly, brushed nonexistent dust from his robe, and glanced at Erika, still crying quietly in Sela's arms. His lips twitched faintly, dismissively.
"He could have recovered so much better."
The words were like a cold needle, lightly puncturing the fragile peace of the embrace.
Erika's sobs hitched.
Recovered? Like this?
Sela didn't respond. She loosened the embrace gently but kept her hands on Erika's shoulders, steadying him in the wheelchair. She stood, smoothed the wrinkles from her habit with composed movements, then turned to Lynus and gave a slight nod.
"I will take him back to rest."
Lynus waved dismissively, already turning away, as if he had lost all interest in the room.